Brandon got to his feet, glaring at the old smith, before storming out in a huff.
Rory took the bottle back from Nina and took a swig himself.
“Don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy.”
Nina sniffed.
“I can still hit him if you want?”
The smith sighed.
“I’ll trade you: you can have that muscle-headed lunk if I can have your little guy. Because Nameless works harder than anyone his size has a right to, whereas my boy has the work ethic of a lump of coal.”
The Gigas nodded sympathetically.
“Yeah, but my master has the libido of a god, and I don’t think he’d care for your whiskers.”
For the first time since he was fifteen, Rory Dixon blushed scarlet before laughing uproariously.
__________
Brandon was beyond annoyed now, and his head hurt!
What did that old bastard hit me with?!
He was in such a rush to get away from his father’s forge that he slammed right into a towering figure, bouncing off of her and falling to his ass like a little kid in the street.
“Oh no, are you alright?”
A bell-like voice chimed in concern as Brandon lay on his back for the second time in as many minutes.
“Hey dipshit watch where you’re going!” A second voice called out right afterwards.
Looking around he realized that he had slammed right into that Minotaur that his father had just been talking about, the Katje standing beside her.
The cow girl wore a concerned expression but the cat just looked annoyed.
Brandon’s jaw dropped: up close, the Katje was smoking hot.
He ran his eyes all over her tanned legs, his vantage point giving him a good few of her dark panties and he didn’t waste it. In fact, he was so distracted that he completely missed the knife that she slipped out from under her shirt or the deepening scowl on her face.
Abruptly the Minotaur hoisted him to his feet with such ease that her felt more than a little emasculated.
But that Katje…
He recovered what he could of his dignity as he looked back to the sexy cat girl, once again donning his most charming smile as his eyes roamed over her curves again.
Everybody knew that Katje were notoriously slutty.
He went for flirty with a hint of teasing.
“Hey cutie, no need to get your tail in a knot.”
What he got was a knee to the balls.
He slumped back to the ground with a wheeze as the girl hissed at him.
“Fuck-head! This pussy cat is taken, so keep your eyes to yourself!”
He rolled on to his back and stared at the sky, tears at the corners of his eyes.
“Do you think he’s alright?”
“I don’t think I kicked him hard enough to cure him of being a jackass, so no, he isn’t.” The Katje said.
“Yeah, he was sort of ogling you wasn’t he?” The Minotaur giggled.
Blearily Brandon recognized that the voices were receding as the annoyed pair walked away from his prone form.
It had turned into a really shitty morning.
__________
It had been a full day since Cordelia had brought her pie to the cottage but her encounter with Nameless and the girls bonded to him still made her cheeks turn pink when she thought back on it.
She was once again in the kitchen of the bakery, this time she was baking a pie for her father. He had been sulking since yesterday and she knew he wouldn’t stop until he got a pie out of her, so she decided to just get it over with.
As she put the pie in the oven though, her father called her from the front of the bakery.
“Er, Cordelia? You have a customer, several customers actually.”
Curious at the oddly strained tone of his voice she wiped the flour and bits of apple onto her apron and left the heat of the kitchen behind.
She nearly fled back into it a moment later as she saw the mixture of Hornets and Amazons arrayed in the front of the bakery.
“Wha-what is going on?”
She hated it when people stammered; it was probably what irritated her about Nameless in the first place.
“You are Cordelia? Who brought sweets to our Valkyrja-datta?”
The same Amazon from the previous day spoke in a soft and lilting voice, her piercing eyes locking the baker’s daughter in place.
Cordelia merely nodded, not trusting herself to speak again.
“I am Escrya, and these are my war-sisters. We would have words with you, if your father can spare you.”
He looked about ready to object, but she spoke again before he did.
“Fear not, son of Loskin. She will be under the protection of the Brael tribe for as long as she is with us.”
“And the protection of Queen Oldeera, who also demands an audience.”
The Hornet who spoke gave the Amazon a pointed look.
Her father closed his mouth and looked to Cordelia, though before she could offer any objections of her own she was swept out of the bakery by the mixed group of warriors, an Amazon holding her under each arm and carrying her with her feet inches off the ground.
“Hey! Put me down!”
Her voice broke as they moved quickly through town, the Hornets flying along around them while the Amazons took loping strides past gawking townsfolk.
They were just outside of Kettering on the road to Wayfelt before the startled Cordelia voiced her objections again.
“Where are you taking me?! And what the hell do you even want with me?!”
The young Amazon gave a gesture with one fist and they abruptly stopped, forming a ring around her that was entirely too intimidating even as they settled her back on her feet.
“To determine what your intentions are with our Valkyrja-datta, the man you know as Nameless.”
The strange word threw her but she still sputtered a response.
“I don’t have any intentions! I just made him a fucking pie!”
Escrya nodded.
“This much we know, but why did you make him a... pie?”
She said the word as if she had never heard of pie before.
Cordelia found herself at a loss for words. She didn’t know quite how to explain her actions from the day before without it sounding just sort of... stupid.
“I, he was sad! People eat pie when they’re sad okay?”
Escrya shared a questioning look with one of the other Amazons, who merely shrugged.
“Is it your intention to court him? To ply his affection with sweets?”
Cordelia turned indignant.
This was too much! First they kidnap her from the bakery and now they’re accusing her of… she didn’t know what they were accusing her of actually.
“No! I’m not trying to pie him into being my boyfriend!”
Escrya looked skeptical and a bit put out.
“And why not? Our Valkyrja-datta would make a fine husband!”
All of the Amazons and most of the Hornets were nodding in agreement with Escrya’s words.
Cordelia was truly befuddled now.
“First you accuse me of trying to win him over, now you’re mad at me for not trying to bake him into bed? What the hell lady?! And why do you keep calling him that?”
The Amazons shared another knowing look, then a warm chuckle as they at last relaxed.
“Forgive our rudeness, maker of sweets. He is our Valkyrja-datta, blessed and beloved by our people because he returned the Valkyrie to the world. In so doing he has earned our loyalty and devotion, indeed our hearts are his for the taking. His well-being is of great importance to us, and although Ophelia assured us that you had no evil intentions we dared not take any chances.”
The irritation that Cordelia felt at being abducted dissipated quickly as curiosity took its place.
Unfortunately the Hornets had been growing increasingly agitated at the delay.
Before she could ask one of the many questions tha
t Escrya’s words had instilled in her she was once again hoisted into the air under the arms, though this time it was by two Hornets, and she kept going up...
“Wait! I’m afraid of HEEEIIGHTS!!”
She squealed and closed her eyes as they shot into the air.
As the poor girl went rapidly skywards, Escrya shaded her eyes and watched.
“That was very rude.” She commented to her sisters.
__________
They flew straight up and then to the side of the road. Despite her fear Cordelia was unable to keep from looking at the landscape below, the shape of Kettering made unfamiliar by the unusual vantage point.
They carried her off into the woods on Paul Fletcher’s property.
She was a flustered mess when the Hornets finally dropped down into the halls of a strange amber dome that was under construction in a clearing near the bridge to Nameless’s cottage.
Her knees were shaking so badly from the sudden flight and landing that the Hornets kept having to stop so she could compose herself.
Eventually she was led into the center of the maze-like building and found herself staring at a voluptuous woman wearing a circlet and a sheer yellow negligee.
Cordelia could clearly see the Hornet’s nipples through the thin fabric as the queen smiled at her.
“Hello, are you Cordlia?”
She huffed in indignation at the monster girl’s egregious mispronunciation of her name. The terrifying flight here had caused the fiery young woman’s temperature to reach a boiling point.
“What the hell am I doing here?!”
“You address a queen! Speak with respect!” One of the Hornets barked at her.
But the baker’s daughter wasn’t intimidated in the least, not after being forced to face her fear of heights for the last several minutes. And though she had been working to control her temper after all of the drama with Nameless, she couldn’t keep from telling the surrounding monsters exactly how she felt.
“Oh why don’t you just suck my dick? You bitches abducted me! You speak with respect!”
She threw a kick at the Hornet’s shin, but the warrior simply buzzed her wings and backed up a couple feet with a stern look.
Cordelia matched her glare as hot stressful tears spilled down her cheeks and she wiped them away quickly.
The queen raised a hand to forestall her hive’s natural response to perceived slights against her.
“It’s alright my sweets, I will speak with Cordlia alone.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes as the Hornets deferred to their queen.
“As you say, highness.”
Many of the agile warriors took up residence in strange hexagonal cubbies in the walls, while some of them took up a guard position at the entrance.
“You must forgive my sweets Cordlia, they are-”
“Cor-dee-lia!”
The queen blinked; she wasn’t used to being interrupted, or corrected for that matter.
“Um, pardon?”
“My name, you bimbo! It’s Cordelia. ‘Cordlia’ isn’t even a word!”
Oldeera was taken aback by the girl’s tone but she tilted her head in understanding.
“Very well, Cordelia, I had you brought here so that-”
Once again she was interrupted.
“And what gave you the right to bring me anywhere?! I told those stupid bitches I was afraid of heights, but they didn’t even listen! I ought to sick the lawkeeper on you!”
Despite her aggressive words, Cordelia knew it was a hollow threat: Magnus, the local lawman, was portly and jovial, and certainly no match for an entire hive of Hornets.
The Hornet queen coughed delicately in an attempt to regain her composure.
“That isn’t necessary, now if you would-”
But Cordelia wasn’t done.
“I don’t want to hear it lady! You have no right to give me orders! Or, or make demands or whatever! I want to go home!”
The queen blinked rapidly, bemused by the furious young woman’s behaviour. Not once in her life had anyone ever been brought to her hive only to address her with such impertinence. It was… strangely thrilling.
Cordelia crossed her arms over her breasts and stood with one foot tapping impatiently.
“Well?! Take me home!” She repeated.
Oldeera, warrior-queen in service to the Aegis, veteran of many conflicts, found that she couldn’t see a means of placating the red-faced young woman before her and so she nodded her assent.
“Very well. I’m sorry if I caused you any distress, that wasn’t my intention. My sweets, return Cordelia to her home. And… fly low.”
With that the girl was carried from the chamber, once more cursing at the Hornets around her as they rapidly left their hive.
A bemused Oldeera slowly shook her head.
“I just wanted her to make me a pie.”
__________
This was so much worse.
Cordelia fought down nausea and vertigo as the Hornets wove their way with terrifying speed through the woods, each tree was a barky promise of death, only narrowly avoided by the slightest of shifts in the deft flyers’ buzzing wings.
At last they flew clear of the woods, but before Cordelia could even breathe a sigh of relief they were instead weaving their way through the various residents of Kettering, she even recognized a few faces, though she barely had time to register their gawking looks and shouts of alarm before they flew past.
Foolishly, perhaps, she expected the Hornets to drop her outside the entrance to the bakery.
Not so.
Somehow they timed their arrival in such a way as to zip sideways through the door even as it was swinging closed after a customer had left.
There was a startled shriek and the distinct and familiar sound of breaking glass when the Hornets set her on her feet right in front of her sister Helen.
Before the poor girl had time to even say a word, the Hornets were gone.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, Helen spoke.
“Cordelia? What. The. Fuck?!”
Her eyes were wide as she took in the sight of her older sister; her hair was a nightmare of windswept tangles, and her cheeks a blotchy red mess from her earlier tears.
“Watch your language.” Cordelia said it almost absently as she ran her hands through her hair and worked hard to steady herself after the rapid flight.
Helen wasn’t the only one staring though.
Milly and Erica were both standing just to one side of Helen, looking only slightly confused, and certainly far less thunderstruck than Cordelia’s younger sister.
“I didn’t know that you were friends with Oldeera.” The Minotaur offered.
The windswept girl drew in a breath through her nose.
“We are not friends! She kidnapped me!”
Her frustration was boiling back to the surface, but the sight of the nodding Katje gave her pause.
“Yeah she does that, take it as a compliment though, I think it means she likes you. She kidnapped our master too, though Nina told her if she tried it again she’d pull her wings off.”
Helen swallowed as she looked between the three women; the youngest of Tom Loskins’ children, she was very much a small town girl.
The most exotic thing she had ever seen was the softer side of Janet Skinner’s Blomma garden one night on a dare. And though the encounter had led her to the discovery that she had a marked inclination for girls, she certainly wasn’t used to Hornet kidnappings and death threats from giants!
While her little sister came to grips with the bizarre situation, Cordelia had to come to grips with being face to face with Erica again, all while her hair and face were a mess from her little misadventure.
She smoothed the front of her dress with one hand while her other still struggled with her tangled locks.
“Um, look, Erica. I-”
But Erica interrupted her by stepping forwards; causing her to flinch until she realized that the Katje was helping her
fix her hair with deft movements of her fingers.
“We don’t need to talk about it, ever again really. You reached out to our master while he was hurting, so the rest is just water under the bridge. Shit, were the Hornets flying you in loops or something?”
The Katje gave a shake of her head as she gave up on Cordelia’s hair.
“You need a bath to get this mess straightened out. Anyways, we were just stopping by to thank you again for the pie and return the plate.”
All eyes flickered to the broken plate that Helen had dropped moments earlier.
“Yeah, it was really good!” Milly said brightly.
Still in a daze from the events of the afternoon, Cordelia just nodded.
“Right, um, yeah, no problem. Pie. I’m going upstairs, Helen if any Hornets show up, tell them I died in a fire. And Amazons. Tell them I died in a fire with the Amazons.”
“O-okay?”
Chapter 5:
Sleep Eludes
It was early afternoon when Nameless woke from a nightmare of shadow and fire, of a Dragon’s rage and a Chimera’s cruelty.
And of an Amazon’s courage.
He had tears standing in his eyes as he sat up and tossed the covers off.
It took him a couple of deep breaths for him to shake off the terrible memory but he didn’t like still being in bed this late in the day, even if he needed the sleep.
He threw on some clothes and grabbed some lunch in the kitchen, but while he was eating he heard a strange thwacking sound from outside and soon his curiosity got the better of him, so he wolfed down his sandwich before going to investigate.
After coming back from town the girls had been busy.
Just off the porch the Saenga Amazons had cleared a patch of grass, tearing up the ground in a rough circle of churned earth. Within it Myrina was directing Milly how to wield Kar’s spear. The odd thwacking was her blocking the Minotaur’s clumsy strikes with her own weapon as she gave her instructions.
To his relief Nameless saw that they had wrapped ample padding over the tips of their weapons to reduce the risk of injury.
It was still an unsettling sight for him though; seeing Milly learning how to wield an actual weapon was far different than seeing her and Erica learning how to throw a punch.
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